Nordstrom 2002 Annual Report Download - page 12

Bruce A. Nordstrom
Enrique Hernandez Jr.
John A. McMillan
10 NORDSTROM INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES
Blake W. Nordstrom
William D. Ruckelshaus
dear customers,
employees and shareholders
Nordstrom is not a faceless company. It includes our salespeople, department managers,
store managers, merchants, support personnel, and our board of directors—all working
together to achieve sustained improvement in our results by providing better service to our
customers. Ours is not a one-quarter, two-quarter, or even a 2003 story. It’s a story focused
on constantly striving to be better, supported by a well-established culture: competitive and
empowering, challenging and supportive, flexible in responding to market opportunities,
and unyielding in working every day to warrant the trust of our customers, employees,
shareholders, and business partners.
Our progress in the past year is measured in small but meaningful steps. We set out to
improve service, drive top line sales, reduce expenses, and implement our perpetual inventory
system nationwide. We’re pleased to report we made progress on all four fronts. For example,
comparable store sales, a reflection of customers voting with their hard earned dollars, grew
1.4 percent in 2002. We also recognize that in this challenging economic environment in which a
number of retailers experienced negative comparable store sales, we made strides in regaining
lost market share.
We continued to make progress in better managing expenses. Selling, general and
administrative expense, as a percentage of sales, showed improvement for the second
consecutive year. This expense had grown considerably in recent years relative to our growth
in sales. The progress with expenses over the last two years, while modest, moves us in the
right direction. Opportunities remain to become more efficient and we intend to act on them,
while remaining committed to enhancing the customer experience—in our stores, through
our catalogs and online.
Jeanne P. Jackson